White Blood Cells by The White Stripes

White Blood Cells, the White Stripes' third album, came out on Sympathy for the Record Industry on July 3, 2001, and it's the sound of a duo who'd cut their teeth on the Detroit scene trading some of their blues dust for pure garage-rock voltage. Jack White, who sings and plays guitar, produced it himself, and he and Meg White banged it out in three days at Easley-McCain Recording in Tennessee for $5,000. The rush was deliberate: they wanted the tape to catch the nerves and the raw jolt of the band in a room. It was also the first time one of their records got mastered in a proper studio.

The songs circle love, hope, betrayal and paranoia, and the title and cover art take a swipe at fame and the music business the pair were already eyeing with suspicion. "Fell in Love with a Girl" is a blurting sugar rush, "Hotel Yorba" a stomping singalong, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" a scorched, heartsick howl, and "We're Going to Be Friends" drops the volume to something sweet and small. The band plugged it with a trio of shows in Detroit and sent those first three out as singles.

It charted in nine countries, went platinum in both the US and the UK, and pushed Jack and Meg to the front of the indie and garage rock surge of the 2000s. V2 reissued it in 2002, and critics have kept slotting it onto lists of the best albums ever made.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.